Zoey Van Goey is a local band we've seen on several occasions. They're a an engaging live act and off-stage the members are talented, smart and nice. I was very pleased to find a video for their "The City is Exploding" - the art direction made me think of my very good friend (and frequent commentator) Darth Ken. Hope you all enjoy it and you are having a good weekend.
Saturday Link Dump
I haven't done one of these in ages. Also: insomnia has struck.
- This is my new favourite cartoon. Strong words lurk within, beware.
- Robert Barclay Allardice - The Celebrated Pedestrian: "His most famous feat was the walking of 1,000 miles (1,600 km) in 1000 hours for 1000 guineas in 1809."
- Fancy Fast Food: "Yeah, it's still bad for you, but see how good it can look!" This one is particularly disturbing.
- How To Speak With A British Accent (youtube) is a series of educational videos teaching non-Brits how to perfect their British accent. Well, except that the videos are unintentionally hilarious. I've linked the "Unique Words" video but there are several other gems.
- My mum's local paper had a "best summer photo" competition. This is my absolute favourite entry. Nothing says "Danish summer" like a wheelie bin.
- Via John, the Armenians may be taking Eurovision a tad too seriously..
- The Beauty of Accidents. When a potentially ruined photograph turns out to be strangely beautiful and even better than what you had in mind. Something to keep in mind in these Photoshop days..
- Finally, it took a long time while for Casa Bookish inhabitants to notice but now we're all about Plants vs. Zombies. Pole-vaulting zombies! Dolphin zombies! Pea-shoots! It's maddeningly addictive.
Magic Tricks and Music Halls
Yesterday I found a new favourite place in Glasgow. Walking into Tam Shepard's Trick Shop is like walking into another world, another era. The shop could have been straight out of the 1930s - except for the Obama masks and the nu-rave-esque wigs. It is a place where the owner will start a Victor Borge routine when he learns you are from Denmark, where a shop assistant will disappear through a hole in the floor, you can choose between twenty different kinds of fake moustaches, and tiny kids stare with much fascination at plastic spiders. Tam Shepard's Trick Shop is a family-run business and it has been going since the 1880s. You can see faded music hall posters bearing the names of ancestors and old photos of dishy dames performing magic tricks. "That's my great-grandma," the woman behind the counter informed me. Glasgow has a very proud music hall tradition, actually, and tomorrow we are off to The Britannia Panopticon Music Hall for a steam punk craft show. The Panopticon is the oldest surviving music hall in Britain - the place where Stan Laurel of Laurel & Hardy made his stage debut, no less, and where a young Cary Grant performed while he was still Archie Leach - and it is a beautiful, almost derelict building. The Panopticon Trust has been trying to save the building for about a decade now but it is still fragile. For more information (and a bit of singing), this youtube clip from the AyeWrite literary festival features Judith Bowers, local historian and secretary of the Panopticon Trust, talking about the music hall. If you are local and you have never been, you can visit the building during the Glasgow Doors Open days in September.
Finally, I recently subscribed to My Vintage Vogue which is a tumblr feed featuring glamorous photo shoots from the Vogue archives. And I refuse to believe there has ever been a woman quite as beautiful as Cyd Charisse..
Isle of Cumbrae
(yes, I came home with a tonne of ideas for future projects)
New Lanark: We'll Be Back
My parents are currently visiting these shores and today we treated them to a visit to New Lanark, a former cotton mill village and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, about an hour from Glasgow. I have long wanted to visit New Lanark although prior to my permanent relocation to Great Britain the words "industrial revolution" and "spinning jenny" would strike fear into my heart. In secondary school I had a very eccentric history teacher who persisted in drawing complicated diagrams of how 18th C machinery worked (he'd also draw diagrams of our town's sewer systems). Nowadays I connect "industrial revolution" and "spinning jenny" with local history and, of course, knitting traditions.Fear has been replaced by utter joy.
New Lanark turned out very different to what I had imagined. I had envisioned some lovely scenery coupled with archaic spinning technology. Instead I was greeted by mind-blowing nature, fantastic architecture, great whiffs of History and some rather delicious cake. I picked up a tiny bit of wool - some skeins of Flying Flock shetland/hebridean DK and some 'limited edition' New Lanark Aran - but the visit was far more about jaw-dropping sites and learning new things about my new homeland. Sadly the camera batteries gave out before we could shoot pictures of the amazing sights..
.. but it will not be our last visit.
My parents are here until the end of the week and we are planning a trip up the West Coast on Saturday. I'm thinking a trip to Largs possibly or do my Scottish readers have better suggestions? And no, unfortunately my mother's not hugely into knitting otherwise we'd visit the Old Maiden Aunt studio..
Friday Linkage And Such
Ooooh, nice location and a suitable size! I also like that it hasn't been refurbished beyond recognition (I have a particular bone to pick with developers putting Poggenpohl-knock-off kitchens into Victorian properties). Shame about the price, of course. A few months ago David and I went to see the Swedish vampire film, Let the Right One In. It was more art-house than Hammer house and unsurprisingly it is set for a US remake so people do not have to endure subtitles or pale Swedish boys with bowl haircuts. While most aspects of the US remake fills me with dread - the director made Cloverfield and ambiguous gender portrayals are becoming significantly less ambiguous - I found it really interesting to watch the casting tapes of the three girls up for the lead which io9 posted recently. I know which girl I prefer but I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts. Also, do not miss the discussion on io9.
Psychotic Letters From Men was a recent MeFi find. Normally I would cast it a cursory glance, move on and not mention it here, but the site did remind me of the time I received letters from a blog reader who was convinced that a) I had an artificial limb and b) this was the biggest turn-on in the world for the guy. No wonder I let my old blog die a very quiet death..
Finally, Advanced Style cheered me up. It really proves that style ain't no age-thing.